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[Tagyhag]

As evidenced by these videos themselves a locked, steady, smooth 30fps can be fantastic. The game looks so smooth in motion sometimes it has the fluidity of a 60fps look despite being 30fps.

That feel of 60fps.jk

As I said before, while I think it stinks that devs sacrifice gameplay for graphics, I completely understand given gaming audiences.

But as a long time PC gamer, saying that 30fps is unplayable, even on a racer, is extremely silly. Ideal? Of course not, but you get what you pay for.

 

[ChronotriggerJM]

http://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/stats.php

I really don't notice a difference in responsiveness between 60fps and 30fps titles.
I notice it visually, and I prefer 60 due to just looking smoother. But for controls I don't notice a thing. Still plays the same to me.

Yup, that's me as well. I call shenanigans for anyone basing a racing games dependency on 60fps for "control reasons".

I'll buy and appreciate your enjoyment of the fluidity, but anyone claiming "affecting the gameplay" is dramatically overstating the difference between the two. 30fps is extremely fast when talking hand eye coordination.

 

[MightyHedgehog]

Yup, that's me as well. I call shenanigans for anyone basing a racing games dependency on 60fps for "control reasons".

I'll buy and appreciate your enjoyment of the fluidity, but anyone claiming "affecting the gameplay" is dramatically overstating the difference between the two. 30fps is extremely fast when talking hand eye coordination.

So, you're saying that all of the games that choose to go for 60fps over 30fps over the last forty years have done so unnecessarily? It's not just about input latency, which it is, but it's also about what you're communicating to the player at high speed. Choosing 30fps halves the animation and motion shown to the player to react to. That's not nothing, but if you're serious, you should go and tell every game developer who has built 60fps racing, fighting, platform, shooting games over the last four decades that they're doing it wrong. :smh: Likewise, you can tell everyone that buys 120 and 144Hz monitors and PC rigs that they're wasting their money. Games aren't unplayable at 30fps, they're just greatly diminished from what they could be affording the player, in terms of visual acuity, clarity of motion and its coherence, as well as input timing.

 

[ChronotriggerJM]

So, you're saying that all of the games that choose to go for 60fps over 30fps over the last forty years have done so unnecessarily? It's not just about input latency, which it is, but it's also about what you're communicating to the player at high speed. Choosing 30fps halves the animation and motion shown to the player to react to. That's not nothing, but if you're serious, you should go and tell every game developer who has built 60fps racing, fighting, platform, shooting games over the last four decades that they're doing it wrong. :smh: Likewise, you can tell everyone that buys 120 and 144Hz monitors and PC rigs that they're wasting their money. Games aren't unplayable at 30fps, they're just greatly diminished from what they could be affording the player, in terms of visual acuity, clarity of motion and its coherence, as well as input timing.

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to 60fps or higher, but purely from a visual standpoint on my end. I personally don't benefit from the increased response time.

My eyes certainly appreciate the smoothness, but you won't hear me ever complain about being screwed over by lack of response. 30 frames is quite fast in that regard.

 

[MightyHedgehog]

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to 60fps or higher, but purely from a visual standpoint on my end. I personally don't benefit from the increased response time.

My eyes certainly appreciate the smoothness, but you won't hear me ever complain about being screwed over by lack of response. 30 frames is quite fast in that regard.

You may not appreciate what you're seeing in those sub-second frames, but that doesn't mean you're not reliant upon and benefiting from what you cannot isolate in motion with your conscious mind. You aren't ever going to be cognizant of what frame-by-frame visual cues are helping your visual cortex to make sense of what is happening on-screen in those fractions of a second that you're focusing on the screen and then tipping you off in the most low-level way to signal your hands to operate your controller in an appropriate fashion, but the more unique frames you observe equals more samples or more data for your brain to be more certain of what you're seeing so as to act more quickly, confidently, and accurately. Lower the framerate, like lowering the sampling rate, and you're going to be working with much less to act off of and you will be more likely to turn too early/late, oversteer/understeer, brake too little/much, or mistime or misapply the throttle or e-brake. That extra visual data, however unappreciated outside of the game experience, is directly affecting your control even if you cannot consciously appreciate the added and unique motion.

Now, maybe you play casual and sloppy and don't get into the competitive spirit of racing games, shaving lap times and bettering your ability to correct yourself on the road at a moment's notice, but if you did, you would realize the difference that more frames makes. And you, like most informed gamers, know to turn off unnecessary processing that your display may perform by choosing a 'game mode' or the like, but 60fps also acts as an internal shortcut to cutting input latency above and beyond that secondary display delay. It's fine if you don't care or appreciate, but it's simply not the case that 30fps gives you as much control over the game as 60fps or better does and that doesn't change with racing games running at high speeds with little room for error in a competition.

 

[Putty]

30fps locked this far out sounds awesome! Another round of optimisations to come with even more bells and whistles added! LLOONNGG 5 months to go.

 

[DBT85]

I'd really love a Driveclub thread that didn't decend into discussion about the framerate. Bit like The Order threads and resolution at this stage.

 

[Phear]

Quick Question: Why is there only 30 and 60 fps? Can't like every newer TV display 50 Hz? Go for 50 fps then at least, when 60 isn't achievable...

 

[MightyHedgehog]

I'd really love a Driveclub thread that didn't decend into discussion about the framerate. Bit like The Order threads and resolution at this stage.

Then why did you enter a thread that was explicitly about the framerate?

 

[amar212]

Quick Question: Why is there only 30 and 60 fps? Can't like every newer TV display 50 Hz? Go for 50 fps then at least, when 60 isn't achievable...

50Hz? My plasma goes to 600Hz. Fix that shit Guerilla.

 

[polyh3dron]

Man what the fuck is it with some of you saying that PGR and Horizon are considered shit now? No one is fucking saying that.
The point is they would be better games if they were 60.
So yes they made a bad choice because a racing game at 60 is always better than the same game running at 30. That is just a fact if we are talking how a game plays.

I was pissed when I saw a bunch of early PGR3 videos running at 60 and then the game I bought for the 360 at launch ended up being 30. It was a really shitty bait and switch.

 

[Earthpainting]

30 FPS being a choice is pretty obvious. Sub-HD resolutions are a choice for similar reasons. You're dealing with a closed system with a finite amount of power. You need to work within its limitations and set your priorities accordingly. If they had theoretical unlimited horsepower and resources, they wouldn't be making games at 30 FPS for artistic reasons.

I usually don't really mind 30 FPS too much, as long as the framerate is stable, but racing games are one of those genres where I'll definitely miss a smooth 60. I'll label their choice under "unfortunate".

 

[panty]

No point in "pushing visual fidelity" if you're just going to make it look ugly with a choppy framerate.

Choppy framerate? What a load of bullshit. Some of these posts are borderline idiotic.

 

[boredandlazy]

Choppy framerate? What a load of bullshit. Some of these posts are borderline idiotic.

Borderline?

 

[panty]

Borderline?

English isn't my first language, be gone monster

 

[boredandlazy]

English isn't my first language, be gone monster

I wasn't questioning your spelling or grammar.

 

[Aruhamel]

30 fps is NEVER a choice.

 

[killatopak]

Get over it guys. Rock solid 30fps with amazing visuals and dynamic lighting is a choice as much as smooth as shit 60fps with not as great visuals and baked lighting.

Some things to take note of in DC.
-It's not a sim but it's not an arcade racer. It's a mix of both. (whether this means that 60fps is inconsequential or not, I don't know)
-Every single car is very detailed in the photo mode and in the actual race itself including the insides of the car. ( I guess this is why they went with fewer cars and just streamlined the best.)

The other alternatives such as MK8 and Project cars are the only ones you can choose from.

MK8 isn't based on reality though and is purely arcadey so the comical colors mask the lack of details. But if you can put aside the cartooney look then this is one of the best looking and playing racers.

Project Cars while looking good is only because it runs on a high end rig. Whether the PS4 version can still look the same and have every feature that the PC version has without any drawbacks is yet to be known.

shows how powerful the ps4 is when their racer is barely better lookiing than forza at half the framerate and forza is a launch title to boot, with an older engin

not sure if serious.

Baked lighting, incorrect reflections, jpeg trees and cutout audiences versus awesome foliage, correct reflections, dynamic lighting and lots more? Forza is damn fine looking game with 60fps to boot but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

 

[chrishackwood]

120, 60 30fps ... I don't really care. Is it fun to play in single or multiplayer is the primary concern for me?

Those who want a 60fps racer look somewhere else... or develop your own racer and let people just enjoy this game for what it is!

 

[Dead Man]

I'm with the Driveclub director here. I used to think that I hated 30fps. What I actually hated was 20fps – 30fps is just fine.

We've simply been conditioned to expect for "30fps" to have frequent dips to the low 20's when the shit hits the fan. That's jarring and it takes you out of the experience. Locked 30fps, though? That's just fine. Absolutely, 100% fine.

I've been playing all of my PC games at capped 30fps with all settings cranked to max. It's been wonderful, having a constant frame rate makes every game that much more enjoyable to play. I'll never understand how some PC players play their games with judderific performance that fluctuates between 45-60fps. That is what's unacceptable. Constant, locked 30fps is far superior to that.

So good on you, Driveclub team. Your game looks fucking phenomenal and it has a locked-ass frame rate with no dips.

Perfect.

Not sure I would swap 45-60 for locked 30, but other than that I agree.

 

[molnizzle]

Not sure I would swap 45-60 for locked 30, but other than that I agree.

The issue is that 99% of TV's are locked to 60hz. If a game is running at 60fps, that means that each frame is displayed exactly one time. Smooth performance.

If a game is running at 30fps, that means that each frame is displayed exactly two times. Not as fluid as 60fps, obviously, but still "smooth" because the speed of motion never fluctuates.

If a game is running at 45fps, though? That's when it gets janky. If the first frame displays twice (like with 30fps) then the second frame will only display once (like with 60fps). This is the "judder" that drives people so crazy. It's the exact same "choppiness" you see when a game dips from 30fps to the low 20's.

Constant 30fps will always be superior to that on a 60hz display.

If/when we get TV's with Gsync-style variable refresh rates, then a fluctuating 45-60 would be perfectly fine since every frame would still only be displayed once. Sets like that are still years away though, if they ever come at all. That's why devs currently only have two real options: 30fps or 60fps.

Quick Question: Why is there only 30 and 60 fps? Can't like every newer TV display 50 Hz? Go for 50 fps then at least, when 60 isn't achievable...

Not in the US, no. 50hz is some weird-ass PAL shit.

50Hz? My plasma goes to 600Hz. Fix that shit Guerilla.

I don't want to get into the specifics here, but... no it doesn't. =P

 

[Petalpusher]

50Hz? My plasma goes to 600Hz. Fix that shit Guerilla.

Your Plasma is not 600hz, only the subfield drive wich actually pulse ten time a frame at 60fps, even if you input more fps it will still refresh 60 frames. It's the way the single image is built that is 600 hz on Plasma (and a lot more on the last high end Panasonic). Of course it's a good thing for the whole image quality and motion resolution but nothing to do with refresh rate as we speak here.

 

[Ashadian]

Really 30fps on Next-gen? I'm used to play at 120fps on my PC. That would be huge downgrade for me.

Where the hell have you been the last few years???? 120fps is so out of touch!
My PC its 240fps or above only!

 

[Ysiadmihi]

Choppy framerate? What a load of bullshit. Some of these posts are borderline idiotic.

Not having your standards beaten out of you is idiotic now? How adorable.

 

[Thrakier]

30 fps is NEVER a choice.

Right. It's just a compromise. And alwasy the wrong one.

 

[Nafai1123]

30 fps is NEVER a choice.

Huh? 30fps is always a choice. You may not agree with it, but it's still a choice.

 

[Naminator]

Ohhh so not just 30FPS, it's 30PFPS, awesome!

 

[Not Spaceghost]

I don't think driveclub particularly benefits from running at 60fps, as much as it does from looking good. Hell I don't think half of my favorite racing games in the past gen have run at 60fps.

60fps benefiting racing games always felt like a bit of a stretch, 60fps is something that is mostly capitalized on gameplay that revolves around precision actions within very small time frames. There is nothing remotely like this in a racing game, the speed doesn't come at a burst it's gradual, therefore the acceleration allows you to disguise your frame limitations in a way that's barely observable.

30fps will be sufficient for driveclub, this is one of the few instances where I'd rather the game look good than be 60 fps.